


Follow me into the light

by voculae (northernMagic)



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Dreams, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-15 16:19:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5792362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northernMagic/pseuds/voculae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Bond dreamt of Q, and two times Q imagined Bond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beaubete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/gifts).



> Written over the last 1.5 years for the 00QNYP Summer Exchange 2014 for [beaubete](archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete). I have many excuses, none of them adequate, and I hope you can accept the story that attempts to be the story you were waiting for.
> 
> Thanks to my lovely friend [witblogi](archiveofourown.org/users/witblogi/) for beta-ing something outside their fandoms and generally putting up with my writerly self doubt. First long!fic wahoo!
> 
> Title from the song "Folge mir ins Licht" by Melotron
> 
> Feel free to remix this or any of my other works (with attribution) and drop a link back to me (voculae on tumblr).

Bond’s relationship with the Quartermaster was by no means hostile, and it sometimes even bordered on friendly between their sniping remarks and Q’s admonishments about lost equipment. Q remained, however, quite aloof and somewhat cool compared to his other, more outgoing colleagues. It was quite unlikely that Q would visit Bond in the infirmary, no matter how he wished for some intelligent company.

Freshly returned from India, Bond was to his annoyance feverish and bedridden. It was a first in many years. For the first week, he saw no one but doctors and nurses who took great pleasure in telling him he shouldn't have skipped his shots, and whenever he was lucid again, M came to compound his boredom. This explained his enthusiasm when one night a familiar gangly man slipped through the door into his room. The lights were off, but in the moonlight he could see Q's hair fading into the darkness, his skin glowing, and his glasses glinting.

"Q," Bond exclaimed, puzzled and relieved. "Tell me you're here to get me out." The corners of Q's mouth turned up. 

"I am here to do nothing of the sort," Q retorted, his voice low.

"Then why are you here?" Disappointment made Bond’s voice sharper than usual.

"I'm here to keep you company," Q replied simply.

"Company?" Bond echoed. Few people came to 'keep him company': Moneypenny was busy and he was frankly tired of talking to M. Besides, they usually came during visiting hours. He supposed it had been a while since he'd had to spend more than a few hours in Medical; well before Q's time, at least. Perhaps Q would have visited more often, and they’d have had a chance to actually chat like normal adults. "I could use some company. How did you get past Nurse Frigga?"

"I have my ways," said Q as he drifted to Bond's bedside, mysterious as ever.

The smell of Earl Grey drifted to Bond's nose, and he saw Q set down his ever-present mug on the bedside table. He didn't seem to be carrying his laptop or tablet, however.

Q perched on the side of his bed, statuesque in the darkness. It was then, with the ink of night-time muting the loud colours of Q's questionable taste in clothing, that Bond let himself appreciate Q for his form. Bond took in his lean torso and long neck and wished he could see those knowing hazel eyes, and wondered that his keen observational skills had failed him so fully when it truly mattered. Here indeed was exactly the company that Bond wanted tonight.

"How did you plan on keeping me company?"

"However you want," was Q's demure answer.

Bond considered for a moment. Q, being a boffin, probably preferred the direct approach. Bond usually liked playing the game, but he found he had no patience for it tonight. He reached up and put two fingers on Q's lips, dark in the moonlight. Q leaned into it, Bond's calluses catching like sandpaper, and Bond felt his heart catch as well.

"Kissing?" said Bond roughly.

Q braced himself on a slim but tightly corded forearm as he leaned over Bond, who was abruptly reminded that this was the man who had re-engineered a car for him. A very fast car.

"I'm amenable to that," Q whispered. 

His breath smelled of chocolate, and Earl Grey, and something else spicy and undefinable. Bond put a gentle hand at the back of Q's head and pulled him close, the better to taste him and find out.

Their kisses were long, slow, and steady, as though they were content to devote the entire night to the soft exploration of each other's mouths.

"I feel much better now," said Bond after a few minutes, hours, days.

"Good," said Q against Bond's mouth, chuckling breathlessly when Bond nipped at him. "You should wake up now."

"Wake up?"

"Double-oh-seven?" 

Bond blinked awake, the overhead lights harsh on his dilated eyes. A buzzer was sounding somewhere near his head. A nurse leaned over him, one of the new ones, to turn it off. "Ah good, you're awake. Could you sit up for me and drink some water? We might as well get your sheets changed while we're here." She helped him out of the bed into the bedside chair and bustled around the bed, wrapping up the old ones and fitting new ones from a closet in the corner. 

Bond tried not to shiver as the air cooled his sweat. He surreptitiously looked around the room and managed to peek out the door into the hallway -- Q was nowhere to be seen.

This was going to be complicated.


	2. Chapter 2

Q is used to being the watcher, the one who sees all and knows all. What he didn’t know was why Bond was here. He knew why he _wanted_ Bond to have sought him out, and it was the logical conclusion, but he didn't trust logic around an impossibility like Bond.

Bond was sleeping on his couch. The first time, Bond had been recovering from a fever and hiding out from the nurses. That whole mission had been a wash, with Bond having given away valuable tech and succumbing to a rather nasty infection after a dip in the Hong Kong harbour. The scent formula that Q had entrusted Bond with could rewrite whole industries if it wasn’t retrieved quickly.

That time, Bond had fallen asleep during one of Q's rants about letting strange women go through your things and holding priceless things like data ransom for other priceless things like a perfume that always smelled like your favourite smell and could knock an elephant out at twenty paces. Nowadays, Bond merely flopped onto Q's couch and squashed Q's spare cardigan into a pillow without so much as a by-your-leave. He also snored, thanks to a broken nose from before Q's time, but it was a low buzz that was oddly calming. That was what Q told himself, when he wondered why he hadn't thrown Bond out. (It was definitely not the threat of puppy eyes. Freakishly deadly puppy eyes.)

The thing was, Bond didn't sleep. He's catnapped on Q's watch before, ready to snap to action in a blink of an eye. He presumably got some rest in the rare time that he has to himself, but that's weeks and several bed partners apart. He’s never slept when someone else is in the same building.

Yet, here he was.

Q watched his face, how his eyes darted underneath his lids. He was dreaming. He was sleeping deeply enough to be dreaming. He had let himself dream, and his face was slack- they weren’t nightmares. What did James Bond dream, when they weren’t nightmares?

Q hoped he dreamed of a normal life, one that he would spurn in reality but would comfort him in sleep. Perhaps a wife- Bond did like to run away with his countless women- and a few happy children. Perhaps an anonymous card at Christmas would make him smile, light his curiosity...perhaps even in a world such as that, Q would find him.

Q shook himself, swung his chair back to his desk and the stack of paperwork sitting in the lone pool of light. A tiny meow drew his attention back to Bond: Lovelace was pawing at Bond's foot, which hung over the couch end. Before Q could move to sweep up his cat, she jumped up and walked over Bond's torso and curled up on the hollow between his shoulders. Q glanced at Bond's face; he hadn't moved and his breaths were still even, but there was a faint quirk at the corners of his mouth.

Q cursed his cat silently, envious of the creatures on his couch; he dearly wished he could curl up with them and close his eyes, even for a few minutes. He would dream of a world where Bond wouldn't mind holding close a bony, male computer geek (albeit a brilliant one). A world where Bond genuinely appreciated the things Q made to keep him safe, a world where Q was more, meant more than a palm-print gun and a sharp knife. 

Of course, it was just a fantasy. Q would always throw every part of himself into giving Bond what he needed, even what he wanted, and Bond would always know. But Bond was a professional (sometimes); he knew not to let it affect him like it had infected Q. Bond was an expert at dealing with unwanted affections, while Q was, well, Q. Soon Bond would gently extract himself from any possibility of romance with Q and somehow leave their working relationship intact, as he had with half the agency already. Soon. As soon as Bond stopped sleeping on Q's couch.

Q supposed he's just that convenient.

Q rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. He had scoffed at first at the notion of being Bond's handler, and yet even he couldn't deny that Bond had developed some measure of trust in him over the actual trained handlers. There was only so much of the art of support that Q could make up on his own, though brilliant as he was, so Q had taken to outright bribing the handlers into training him around his hectic schedule with only M the wiser. It turned out that they had some things to learn from Q as well, which did a world of good for Q's bruised ego. It did not help Q's chronic lack of sleep, however. 

Q checked his watch. There was a little under five hours left until his escort to the final training site arrived, and there was still a lot to sort out for the morning. Q reached over to the kettle and put on a new brew. He sneaked a peek back at Bond, and jumped when he realized Bond had been watching him.

"Good morning, beautiful," Bond rumbled with no hint of sarcasm. His eyes were that clear, bright blue that Q was always afraid of looking into, for fear of never returning. Just like that, he had Q mesmerized. He had his head pillowed on his arms, looking up at Q as though Q was the sight he had been waiting for all his life.

Q finally grabbed his mug and raised it to his lips, only to remember it was empty. "Good morning to you too," he managed to say smoothly, and was rewarded with one of Bond's rare, genuine smiles. He had no idea what to do with it, so he smiled tentatively in return. On Bond's back, Lovelace got up and stretched, only to settle down again and start purring like one of Q's engines.

"Late night?" Bond said. His eyes were half shut and blinking slowly, as though he would tip back into sleep at any moment.

"Early start," Q croaked. He cleared his throat. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Whatever you're having sounds heavenly," Bond replied. Q quickly turned away, busying himself with finding another relatively clean mug. The water in the kettle wooshed and the kettle clicked as it finished boiling. Q took out two empty teabags and filled them with Earl Grey for himself. After a few gestures with Bond, he did the same for the other man. Water first, wait a few minutes while exchanging glances with Bond between his paperwork, teabags out and a splash of milk in. This was worryingly routine.

"When was the last time you had any sleep?" asked Bond after a few sips.

"Last night," said Q. "Don't worry, I may be half your age, but I can take care of myself." Bond looked pointedly at his watch, which probably read a good 24 hours after Q last woke up. Q huffed. "If you must know," Q continued, "I have some rather pressing matters to attend to before I leave for...a training exercise."

"Leave?" Bond levered himself upright, and Lovelace leapt off for parts unknown. "Who's on your security detail? Surely a training exercise doesn't need a department head to be there?" Leave it until now for Bond to acknowledge that Q was an executive. He fixed a glare onto Bond.

"Need to know," he replied sternly, "and I don't need a double-oh causing trouble on a routine exercise. You're not coming, Bond." Bond opened his mouth to argue more, but Q stood up abruptly to cut him off. "Speaking of which," Q continued, "your retrieval mission. We may as well equip you now, since you're already here." He made his way out of his office, expecting Bond to follow.

A few days ago, Q had finally tracked the location of his missing formula on the black market, as well as various knock-off recipes besides. Bond’s mission was to retrieve the formula he had lost in the first place, and destroy all physical copies of the recipes. Q had already done the rest.

Bond received merely a gun and an earpiece, which he pouted at but seemed to accept as his due. "You'll get the perfume as well," Q reminded Bond. "That is, after all, your mission. Your plane leaves in two hours." After Bond thanked him, Q expected Bond to stride out. He had better places to be, after all. However, Bond lingered and the silence stretched. Q arched an eyebrow in question.

"Your timing improved, last mission," Bond said quietly. Q blinked, a fluttering feeling growing in his chest. He twisted his hands in front of him.

"Thank you," he said. Bond reached a hand out to cover his. 

"Keep working on it."

Despite the tender gesture, Q's flutters disappeared in a flash of annoyance. He'd had enough of well meaning people condescending him in his new position, and Q had thought he had dealt with all of them already.

"Yes, I know how to do my job, thank you," he snapped. His jaw clicked as he realized his tone of voice. Q sighed. "I'm not in the best of moods lately," he admitted.

"Tired," Bond stated.

"Yes, very." He added quickly, "But not so much I can't do my job."

Bond looked frustrated, but he still didn't take his hand away. "I just don't want to see my quartermaster burn out," he said stiltedly, squeezing Q's hand before sliding away.

Q blinked after him. Since when did Bond, well, care? It was true that Q was hard to replace, but irreplaceable he was not. His watch beeped. 

"Understood," he said finally. "Dismissed, Double-oh-seven." Bond nodded and left, leaving Q feeling a strange mix of irritated and hopeful.


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn't that Q’s replacement handler was incompetent. The voice in Bond’s ear had guided him safely through the maze of the market day milieu, and saved him from being run over through acoustics alone. He was now striding toward the temple a full five minutes ahead of schedule. This was more than he could say for Q's usual narrowly timed information.

There was something missing, though, from his communication with his handler. He knew exactly what it was, and he was enough of a professional not to miss it. He knew better than to needle his handler, to mentally inject quiet huffs after his quips, to listen for the clink of a mug on a desk half a world away. Yet he moved as though dancing to the wrong music, anticipating hesitations that didn't come, replying to commentary that he didn't hear. He knew he was already spoiled for a better handler. He knew better than to get used to Q.

Bond straightened his cuffs and rolled his neck as he walked, having just destroyed the second last bit of physical evidence of Q’s secret formula and the people who had tried to crack it. He walked up the steps and showed his invitation to one of the guards in front of the temple, who nodded.

Inside was a graceful sea of dresses and suits, all under the watchful stone eyes of the local deities. Bond deigned to let one of the servants clean off and shine his shoes before he stepped off into the crowd. He idly wondered if Q’s background was as rich as his round vowels, if he had navigated similar shark-infested seas. Bond would certainly pay money to see Q out of his ugly-chic vests and in a well fitted suit, standing by the hors d’oeuvres and spotting Bond over his shoulder. Did Q even own a suit? Surely he did, being an executive. 

It struck Bond then how little he knew about Q, to hold such trust and affection for him. His usual banter with Q consisted of crossing swords about their respective ages or the situation at hand. His few conversations with the man were thick with the meaning of life and death, quite normal conversational fare in their line of work. Something about Q did not invite questioning about the man himself, and Bond had subconsciously acted accordingly. Now that Bond could see the sleight of hand for what it was, he instinctively wanted to push. But Q was absent, and Bond had a job to do.

His handler was quiet as Bond made his rounds. Only an unobtrusive tone in his ear warned him that new information awaited him. Finally, Bond broke away with a glass of champagne to duck into a corner, hidden by a potted plant and a curtain.

He lifted his glass and spoke into it. “What is it?”

“Lady Kingston is in the main atrium now,” said the handler. Lady Kingston was the one who was suspected to have the original perfume Q had manufactured. The shrewd heir to a cosmetics empire, once she had acquired the perfume she had outsourced the work of reproducing the perfume and its side effect to the highest bidder. Bond had already taken care of her henchmen and any physical copies of her notes; now it remained to recover the formula from the lady herself.

“Ah, Mr. Bond,” said a tinkling voice at his side. It was Lady Kingston. Of course. “Or is it Commander Bond? Fancy seeing you here tonight!”

“Mr. Bond or James would do, please,” Bond said cordially, bowing over the lady’s hand. The rest of the party had hushed to a low murmur; they knew who he was, though not why he was here. 

“What a splendid opportunity!” she exclaimed. “I couldn’t have planned it better myself.” She stomped her foot; there was a quiet crunching sound. At that, Bond was already throwing himself backward, but it was too late; he smelled a whiff of Earl Grey and already his limbs weighed like lead. Distantly over the sound of his handler yelling in his ear, he heard Lady Kingston’s gleeful nasal tones: “See you in hell!”


	4. Chapter 4

Bond woke slowly, feeling groggy, feverish, and distinctly out of sorts. The curtains were drawn. They cast a dark, smokey grey light over his bedroom, for which Bond was grateful. He could hear the distant patter of rain and it drilled into his skull. His late nights and drinks were numbered, Bond thought reluctantly.

He reached tentatively to Q’s side of the bed; the man was still asleep. He moved closer, the better to nose into Q’s hair and kiss his head. The clean scent of their shampoo seemed to clear his head a little. Q stirred, one bare shoulder appearing above the covers.

“m’timesit?” murmured Q.

“Time for breakfast, my dear quartermaster,” Bond replied. He pressed a kiss into the other man’s hair and slid out of bed. Q opened an eye hopefully at him, but upon seeing no breakfast in bed he grumbled and burrowed back under the covers. Bond looked at him, for a moment not believing he could finally see Q with his guards down.

He moved into the kitchen, and the sounds of him preparing a meal drew Q out of the bedroom. Q was clothed in only Bond’s shirt, and Bond thought him the best dressed person he had ever seen.

“See something you like?” Q folded his arms and leaned on the doorway to the kitchen.

“Very much so,” Bond said, and moved to Q to give him a kiss, which was returned.

“It’s nice to finally have some time together,” Q mused as he moved back into the kitchen with Bond and perched on the countertop. “I thought I’d never get away.”

“So that means I’ll find you with a screwdriver and bits of the radio everywhere after lunch, is that what you mean?” Bond teased. Q cocked his head at Bond.

“No, I meant actually spending time with you.”

Bond felt odd about that. On the one hand, he couldn’t remember the last time he had all of Q’s attention on him for a lengthy period of time, at least outside of sex. On the other hand, it seemed almost wrong to expect the Quartermaster to _not_ be working on something, even in his spare time. Now that Bond thought about it, he didn’t know what Q did in his spare time, before Bond.

So he served breakfast while asking, “What do you usually do on your downtime?”

Q swung his legs. “I suppose I never really had downtime before,” he said. “And now I get to spend it with you.” He beamed.

Bond felt himself brighten in response. He was starting to explore all the other moods Q had other than “peeved and irritable”, and Q really was adorable when he had a mind to be.

They had a relatively quiet breakfast. Bond worried a little about boring Q; he wasn’t used to morning afters, but the man seemed content to lean back in his chair, chew on his toast, and smile at Bond.

“More tea?” Bond offered. Q nodded. The mug still contained liquid; Bond went to pour it out and accidentally splashed some on his hand. It was still quite warm, even though it had been some time since the mug was first filled. Trust Q to have special insulating mugs, he thought, and poured him a new cup.

“Your mugs are quite something,” Bond said when he got back to the table, for lack of anything else to say. He was hoping to entice Q into a longwinded explanation of his invention. The man was a genius after all; he was sure to love hearing himself talk. But Q merely blinked up at him.

“Sorry?” said Q.

“Your mugs. They keep your tea warm?”

“Oh yes, one of my recent inventions. Do you like it?”

“It’s certainly useful,” Bond said, indicating Q’s full mug. Q looked pleased, but was not any more forthcoming.

“Speaking of inventions,” said Q, resting his elbows on the table and leaning forward, “what did you think of the perfume?”

“Well, I’m glad you’re still speaking to me after that,” Bond chuckled. It seemed like a rather long time ago now, though how long Bond couldn’t say. He was usually better with time than this. “Were you still working on it?”

“Yes, and I managed to find a way to suppress or enhance the drugging effect of the perfume. Do you remember?”

Bond vaguely remembered Q explaining the prototype before he was sent on that first disastrous mission, but it was on the other side of fever dreams and hazy recollections. “I thought you said it was impossible. Did you find a way?”

Q looked frustrated for a second, but his face smoothed. “Nothing is impossible,” he said, and took a sip of his tea. And...there was the smug face Bond was waiting for.

“You’re just dying to tell me now that you have a captive audience,” teased Bond.

“Well, then consider this a test of how much you pay attention,” Q replied with a smirk. Bond kept his appearance calm and flirtatious, but inside he was scrambling. He always paid just enough attention during armament meetings not to blow himself up, and spent the rest of the time eying up either the shiny new thing or Q.

But Bond always remembered the strangest things, the little details that other people missed. Under gentle prodding he remembered the arcane chemical name of the main ingredient, and some quirks that Q had bragged about, some things that had taken years to develop or steal.

He was a better agent than to simply reveal what he knew, though. Even to Q, who already knew what he knew. Supposedly. Q needed to brush up on his interrogation skills if he were going to get any cooperation out of Bond. The agent got a gleam in his eyes at the challenge, and was rewarded with an answering gleam in Q’s. He wouldn’t mind spending downtime with Q if some of their banter were games of cat and mouse like so.

After another round of evasion, Bond heard his phone buzz in the bedroom. Q looked instantly suspicious, which managed to startle Bond.

“I thought we were on holiday?” said Q with an edge in his voice.

“I know, love, it’s probably just Eve calling to cackle at us,” soothed Bond, but they both knew that it wasn’t true. Bond escaped Q’s look of disappointment, headed to the bedroom and picked up his phone.

As soon as he answered it, he heard Q’s voice. “Bond? Bond please answer for once in your life!”

“Q?” said Bond. He then ran back out into the kitchen.

Q was gone.

“Q!”

“I’m here, Bond, I’m right here.”

“Where are you? Where did you go?”

There was a sharp breath, and the line was silent for a moment. Bond clung on, but before he could yell down the phone Q spoke again.

“I was never there. Bond, that wasn’t me. I’ve cut their connection, teams have been dispatched to take care of them now. Bond, can you describe to me where you are and how you feel?”

Bond ran a hand through his hair. “I’m fine. I’m at home...at our flat.” He looked around. Q’s mug was still on the table, full and still steaming as though it were freshly brewed. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Bond heard Q swallow, then release a breath. “You’ve been trapped inside a machine that induces hallucinations. An...outside party has been using it, we think to try and get information from you. We’ve managed to secure the area and block them out, but we can’t bring you out of your hallucination directly. That’s why I’m talking to you right now.”

Bond blinked, trying to process the information, but thinking was slow. “Acknowledged,” he managed to say finally. “Just...give me some time.” He was silent then, and walked around the table. He picked up Q’s mug and took a sip. It tasted like warm tea. He poured out the tea in the sink. When he placed the mug back down, it had a peculiar weight to it, as though— Bond checked the cup. It was full, and steaming.

An unpleasant thought crossed his mind and he swept the mug onto to the floor.

“You were here, though,” he said. “You were right here. So if that wasn’t you...” He felt sick then, and his head swam. He had nearly betrayed his country, nearly betrayed _Q_ , by someone wearing Q’s face. He never thought he would have let this happen again.

But it was too late; Q’s voice was already synonymous with trust, with home. “It wasn’t me,” Q said then, as though he knew what was going through Bond’s mind. Maybe he did.

“How do I know...you’re the real Q?” said Bond, struggling to think. At the edges of his vision, he was losing sight of the flat through a grey haze.

Q sighed. “I suppose you don’t,” he said, and sounded sad. “You’ll just have to trust me...and see.”

“What happens if I don’t make it out?” said Bond.

“We don’t know, but it’s not good.”

“Right,” said Bond. “I trust you.” He walked into the haze.

His footsteps echoed, and he emerged into a darkened hallway. He remembered it as a nondescript hallway on the 5th floor, lined with small conference rooms and offices. He had intimate knowledge of a particular desk on this floor, and the woman who worked there. But she was not his destination now.

As he walked along, he realized that there was no one else in the building. The executive offices were all locked, and no light spilled from under any doorway. He found a clock which told him it was quarter past 3 in the morning.

There was one person that was bound to be working at this hour. Bond headed down the back stairwells and wound his way to the tunnels of Q-branch.

As he suspected, the tunnels were still lit, though sparingly. He took one of the car lifts down to Q’s office. When the lift doors opened, there, sitting in a pool of light from his desk lamp, was Q, who looked up.

“There you are,” Q said softly, and sat looking at him for a few seconds, as though Bond were dearly departed and had newly returned from the dead. Then he clapped his hands together.

“Right, let’s get started, shall we?”

Bond followed him to the room he recognized from having his SmartBlood injection, and took a seat. Q was explaining,

“It’s hard to tell how much time has passed topside. It’s best we go through this as quickly as possible. Your brain has designated this space as a safe place, and will come up with a way to induce the effect of waking up from here.” Q looked around, as though an elephant would suddenly uncloak itself in the middle of the room.

Bond looked at a tray beside him, and a small vial appeared. It was identical to the one Q had given him, once full of Q’s secret perfume. This one was full as well. He cleared his throat to get Q’s attention, and held out the vial. Q recognized it, and looked resigned.

“Ah, yes, of course. How fitting.”

Without further ceremony, Bond opened the vial and sniffed it. A deep woodsy scent enveloped him, with notes of citrus and bergamot. He looked up at Q as his vision whitened and faded away. Just on the edge of consciousness, he felt a brush of lips on his forehead and a murmured, “See you soon.”

* * *

 

Bond awoke, feeling distinctly groggy, overly warm, and a little achey. It was as though he had the deepest sleep in decades. There was something tickling his nose, and when he opened his eyes half his vision was filled with a riot of dark hair. He registered a steady beeping in the background, and a warm weight in his arms.

Movement in the corner of the room drew his eyes. It was Nurse Frigga, with a folded blanket in her arms. She raised a hand to her lips in a shushing gesture and glided over to his bedside.

“I think our young Quartermaster has a little crush on you,” she murmured to Bond, draping the blanket gently over the younger man’s shoulders. Maybe the nurses in Medical weren’t so bad after all. 

Bond gestured to the nurse and whispered, “May I have a cup of tea?”

“Of course, dove,” she said, and soon arrived back with a quaint teacup in a saucer. Bond immediately downed the tea, though it was scalding hot. Frigga made a clucking noise and told him it was what he deserved for haste, and went to take the cup away from him. Bond held onto the cup so that Frigga had to wrench it away from him. Nothing spilled. Bond tolerated a little more fussing from the nurse, one eye on the cup. When Frigga left, she held the cup and saucer separately so that the cup dangled from her hand instead of rattling against the plate. Bond let out a sigh of relief, and settled back down to wait for his quartermaster to awaken.


	5. Chapter 5

They were having a row in Q’s office. Seeing as there was no door, the office being not more than a spacious nook in the tunnels under headquarters, the tone of their voices carried out to the rest of the suspiciously quiet branch.

“I didn’t write encryption algorithms for fun, you know,” Q was saying coldly. “I have been doing this for longer than you’ve been a double-oh.”

“But this,” Bond gestured forcefully, “this was what you were hired to do, hacking and computers. Even engineering. Look at you, you’re too tired to eat sometimes. You don’t actually have to do everything!”

Q glared. “Are you arguing for or against me being your handler? Either way, I assure you, I can and I have gotten the job done. The incident at final training doesn’t count because I saved your life! Again!”

Bond rubbed his face. “I’m arguing because you didn’t need to do training at all, on top of your other duties. You need to prioritize, and I don’t need to be — I cannot be one of your top priorities!”

Q coloured. “If this is because I shouted your name when Agent Greene’s character went down—”

‘Yes, it is!”

“-- then it is merely infatuation, nothing more. Pity me, but you don’t need to save me, even from myself.”

But Bond knew just how long passing fancies last, and he recognised mirrored in Q the deep burning score of something more. It was like a grievous wound quickly dealt; the pain was delayed, but inevitable.

He studied the resigned steel in Q’s shoulders and said, “It’s not just an infatuation.”

Q tilted his chin up, and the set of his body was a monolith, unmovable. “No, it isn’t.”

“Good.”

“Good?!” Whatever response Q had been expecting, it wasn’t that. “It flies against everything that we do!”

“I’m a selfish man, Q,” Bond drawled with a feral grin before turning serious. “I’ll take you for as long as I can have you.”

Q sighed, his fingers flexing where he clasped them together. In the long list of outrageous requests Bond made of him, he was wondering when his person would be next on the list. But he couldn’t deny Bond, not when this was something he’d been dreaming of for so long.

“This is a bad idea, but...you have me,” he raised a finger, “as long as you let me do my job.”

Bond looked frustrated again. “I want you to do your job, Q, and catering to me isn’t part of it.” He walked closer, slowly lifting his hands so that Q could flinch away. When he didn’t, Bond carefully cradled his face. Q’s eyes were wide, and Bond gazed into them. A calm settled over Bond, one he’d never felt before. 

“I’m not like who you imagined in your dream,” warned Q, one last defence before the fall. 

“I hope not,” replied Bond, recalling how blankly his mind had drawn Q. All the gestures had been there to play to Bond’s fantasies, but who was Q outside of them? The Q in front of him was alight with passion, and Bond couldn’t wait to learn everything about him. “You’re brilliant, Q. Absolutely brilliant.” His gaze flickered, and he whispered, “I want to give you some time, Q, just to see what you would _do_ with it.”

Q closed his eyes, as though pained. “You always know exactly what to say,” he whispered back. He opened his eyes again, and a light was afire in them. “But no matter what you think, Bond, you are not disposable. You’re not just a trigger waiting to be pulled. You are my highest priority.” He looked down, smoothing Bond’s lapels. “I had time, and I spent it on you. I don’t regret it, and neither should you.” He tilted his head up then, and closed the small distance between their lips.

Q made to pull back but Bond didn’t let him. Bond pulled the other man close and returned his kiss with as much passion as he knew how to muster. When they parted, Q was breathing heavily, face flushed and curls mussed.

“So,” Q said, a smile curling his lips. “Dinner?”

“Lead on, Quartermaster.”


	6. War game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q participates in a handler training simulation. 
> 
> Written for the MI6-Cafe February Drabble challenge for the prompt, "game".

“...singular emotional attachment...unfit to be an objective handler.” The auditor smirked as he delivered his report.

Q was unflappable, hiding the humiliation of having his heart splayed for the review board to mock. The agents on the enemy team shuffled as the clip from the simulation played.

The avatar collapsed and dissolved. Q’s cry rang clear from the speakers: “Bond!” The ensuing battle lasted seconds as Q had snapped orders to his team, raining retribution.

Q’s phone vibrated in the ringing silence, long short long.

Emergency.

Bond.

Damn handler training and their war games. Q had real work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to remix this or any of my other works (with attribution) and drop a link back to me (vocule on tumblr).


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